Edge’s Ques­tion of the Year is,

“What will change every­thing? What game-changing sci­en­tific ideas and devel­op­ments do you expect to live to see?”

A cou­ple of sci­en­tists respond on areas close to our field:

- Con­trol­ling Brain Plas­tic­ity (by Leo Chalupa)
– The first major upgrade of the human brain and the mind it gen­er­ates since the Pleis­tocene (by Gre­gory Paul)

You can read those and many other fas­ci­nat­ing answers at Edge’s Ques­tion of the Year.

Roundup of inter­est­ing news in this emerg­ing field:

1) Brain Health Lead­ers Team Up to Pre­vent Crashes.

2) Adults Improve Crit­i­cal Pro­fes­sional and Per­sonal Skills Through New Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Program.

3) Nature Neu­ro­science Pod­cast and Lon­don Taxi Drivers.

4) What Have You Changed Your Mind About, lately?.

5) The 2008 Mind & Life Sum­mer Research Insti­tute starts accept­ing applications.

6) The Mind & Life Insti­tute has announced the 2007 Fran­cisco J. Varela Research Award Recip­i­ents. Read the rest of this entry »

Jef­frey Gonce, a Psy­chol­ogy teacher at Red Land High School (West Shore School Dis­trict, PA) just asked his stu­dents to “com­plete a project describ­ing a recent brain (or genetic) study that affects behav­ior.”  The stu­dents could opt to post their arti­cles online, and Jef­frey was kind enough to send us a link to read the results.

We enjoyed the over­all level of the essays (you can read them all here), and truly enjoyed read­ing a beau­ti­ful, well-researched and bet­ter writ­ten essay by Alexan­dra M, 15. Which, inci­den­tally, quotes from one of our favourite pop­u­lar sci­ence books on the brain, John Ratey’s A User’s Guide to the Brain.

Enjoy!

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March 2, 2007

Alexan­dra M

It’s Christ­mas morn­ing, and your brother rushes down­stairs to see what “Santa” brought him. The morn­ing goes by in a flurry of col­or­ful wrap­ping paper and stringy rib­bons until all that’s left is a big present in the cen­ter of your brother’s lap. The present that “Santa” brought him. As he rips open the paper, “Santa’s” chest swells with pride, he feels good and happy. As the brother runs around scream­ing about his new remote con­trolled F-14 Tom­cat, “Santa” laughs and cleans up. But why did he feel that way? Read the rest of this entry »